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brianmed writes "Yes, it works. Codeweavers has just announced their crossover plug-in. It enables users to access popular Windows files and plug-ins in Linux. Right now it is geared towards Quicktime, Shockwave, and Word viewers. Quicktime trailers play just fine. I also have pine setup to launch the the MS Word viewer on command. It is a happy day." Alright, time to start testing. I've also been talking with Jeremy White of Codeweavers: he's got a request for help, as well as an interesting piece on business models -- the Crossover is not entirely GPL. See the above for more information.

If Apple had been serious about it, there *would* have been at least precompiled Linux binaries for it; my only guess is that Microsoft's financial interest in Apple may have helped to prevent that from happening.

Of course, Windows Media Player's ASF support for Linux would be great, but I see no mention of it in the press release. Given that Microsoft went after Virtual Dub [virtualdub.org] for its support of ASF files (read the news archive):

"If I remember correctly, my reverse engineering of the ASF file format structure took place after the DMCA was enacted but before the anti-reverse-engineering clause took effect, and between the filing and issuing dates for the Microsoft patent. I will have to look up the exact dates, but ASF functionality existed in VirtualDub long before the infamous V1.3c release that will seemingly roam the Internet for eternity. This is, unfortunately, the same ASF parser that ended up in the Linux avifile library in modified form -- so anyone using that library needs to be careful. Frankly, I'm amazed my parser ever worked at all, given how nasty it was."

Macromedia (authoring tools) and Microsoft (browsers) are responsible for the propagation of non compliant html code. So as for quality tool's we may want to re-evauluate the meaning of quality. IE 6 has come quite a ways though at least enforcing more standards than it previously had. I have no problem with javascript it can be a useful tool in the right hands.

That is great to hear ( I am being serious ). The only catch is that the most of the QuickTime trailers use Sorenson and I can't see any legal way of getting this working on Linux, unless Apple changes the licensing between them and Sorenson. Maybe its time to encourage the use of a non-Sorenson codec?

You really should read the article before you post obviously stupid comments, but I'll forgive you of that, since I've done that myself (haven't we all). Anyway, to sum up the whole thing in one little line, CrossOver is a Wine-using thingy that lets you install the Windows version of the said plugins and use them as if they were Linux native Netscape plugins. (In other words, since you're using the Windows install of the Windows plugin, of course it works with Sorenson, and next time, click the link... it wasn't even slashdotted.)

And that can cause problems. The website says that the plugin costs $19.95. I understand the need to compensate developers for their work but charging for a plugin that is free (as in beer) on other platforms is not going to migrate people to Linux. This will be news when there are free plugins that install right and work just as well.

Sheesh! Can't people ever get enough? These people did a lot of work, and they deserve to be able to have a company for it. Just because you have a free operating system, that doesn't mean that you deserve everything for no cost.

No one's saying that the developers shouldn't be allowed to charge for their work. We're just saying that no one will pay for the work. How many popular formatscan you name that charge for their viewers?

No, you cpmpletely misunderstand the plugin. How about reading the details first?

The plugin provides the means of runningn other plugins. With the crossover plugin, you can then run most non-ActiveX browser plugins.

This is not just a QT plugin. YOu can do many things, such as Shockwave, QT, and many other Windows-only browser plugins with this. In addition to these, you can also use the plugin for viewing various MS attachements, such as MSWord documents, and Excel spreadsheets.

What makes this useful, is that MS is trying to get rid of all non-activeX plugins in their newer browser. There are many die-hard Windows fans that are quite upset with this. This provides another opportunity for the disgruntled to see there are options. As for the price, come on. This is not twenty bucks to use QuickTime. This is twenty bucks to use a wide variety of plugins.

Given the lack of accurate information in the parent post, it is not an 'interesting' post anymore than other misinformation is interesting. It needs moderated back down.

Its not that $20 is a lot of money, and I'm not saying I'm not going to pay for the plugin, I'm not even saying its a bad idea. -- I'm saying that this doesn't need to be paraded around as another reason to go use Linux because Joe Luser doesn't understand what an Active X plugin is or that MS is taking non-Active X plugin's out. Joe Luser understands that he can get Quicktime etc. [insert your favorite non active X plugin here] for free on Windows. How long will it be before Apple and others release their plugins as Active X plugins?

Let the rationalizations begin. $20 isn't that much. Companies that contribute to free software products need to make money to survive. I can run a lot of plugins with this.

Here's some food for thought. If this plugin is worth $20, then all the things you get in Windows are definately worth $100. Of course you may just not like Microsoft for one of many good reasons, and therefore are willing to pay elevated prices for all the little pieces that come with Windows. That's your choice. Or maybe you prefer to use all free software, that's also your choice.

Twenty bucks isn't much, but QT (for me) isn't essential. Neither are any of the other pluggins.

While I don't mind supporting developers whose work I would use, I'd rather just not watch Quicktime than pay $20 for the ability, especially as it's a rare activity.

Sure, I could pay for it even though I don't use it much, but at that point it does get expensive.

I realize authors need to eat (I write code for a living) but I don't see that their need to eat creates an obligation for me to support them.

The sad fact is that the bar is a lot higher in Linux, for useful shareware. In the windows world, I've seen shareware *ping* programs, (with a small GUI), in Linux cool programs like mtr and nmap are free, you've got to write something pretty cool to compete as freeware, let alone as shareware.

I'm gonna get modded to hell for this, but who cares about Karma, anyways?:-)

Exactly what are we (meaning the Linux community) doing when we reverse-engineer these kinds of procedures? I mean, we rant and rave and scream about how terrible proprietary formats are, about how they destroy innovation, about how they are held by Evil Corporations (tm)... And then we reverse-engineer the system calls until we have something that works for us.

Shouldn't we, as a community, be concentrating our efforts on ways to make the computer world a better and happier place, rather than trying to emulate the big companies that are constantly oppressing the minority Operating Systems (Linux, BSD, etc)? These corporations are doing nothing but destroying our rights, and we emulate them.

It's time for the free software "movement" to destroy these corporations and their powerful, vice-like grip on information (including Quicktime formats) and instead develop our own methods of showing video on operating systems that are not inferior *cough*Windows*cough*

The second anyone creates a popular, free video format, Windows will offer it. Don't Linux users deserve the same thing? And in any case, this isn't hurting the creaters of these formats financially - it's helping by providing more computers to view their content.

I'm all for superior, innovative formats, but I'd like to be able to view older, crappier *cough*Windows*cough* formats as well.

I use Kword but I still need to be able to read.doc files. I use ogg vorbis but still need.mp3 for compatibility. I use Linux but need Win4lin to connect to a citrix application server.

If Linux didn't support these proprietary formats, I couldn't have migrated over to it. Changes have to be made gradually. Free software has a much greater chance of winning if it is able to play on the same field as the competition. If you force people to make either/or choices by not supporting recognized standards (even if proprietary), you will forever shut out the majority of users from ever even trying free software.

Not really, I just see this as the free software community using "embrace and extend" against them. After all, Linux isn't going anywhere on the desktop until it runs what most people are used to, and that means quicktime, active x, and direct-x,.doc files, ect. You and I may not like some or even all of them, but that is what the majortiy of people are using. If we get them hooked on Linux first by letting them use this proprietary stuff in a free OS, then we can later introduce better things when Linux or insert-free-os-here has a large enough user base.

First convince them to use Linux or whatever other os you want. THEN mop up the rest.

I'll explain exactly why this is good. Right now I can't watch these formats in Linux. Thanks to Codeweavers, a measly $20 will let me. That is good.

Sure, this doesn't conform to some Stallmanist ideology, but people who adhere to ideology often totally lose sight of functionality. (eg. the whole GNU/Linux debate). Personally, I just want to watch the video files, and I don't care how this fits into some guy's utopian dreams.

I think that the fundamental error in Stallmanism is it's strict adherence to law. True Marxists will violate laws that get in the way of their revolution. I call for a Neo-Stallmanism in which if we can't get codec's, we break into coroporate offices and steal them (or hack them, whatever's easier).

Well, I personally share your point of view. I always use the Free alternative, and when there is no Free alternative I don't buy (download) the product. It's not like I'm gonna die or anything just because I won't see a stupid movie trailer. But apparently there are people who *do* feel like they're gonna die if they won't see the stupid movie trailer, or people who feel that they should imitate everything under the sun in order to "make the migration path easier for users of other platforms", and they write stuff like this. I see nothing wrong with that. I get what I want, they get what they want, everybody's happy. It's not like anyone is opressed, on the contrary: when a Free alternative to something proprietary is released, it means less oppression, because there's more choice available. Unless, of course, the one who wrote the Free alternative gets thrown in jail over it.:-(

he he, so IE6 drops quicktime, and Linux picks it up. good deal. i must say i'm a little surprised that Apple is better about making a Linux friendly quicktime viewer, especially in light of what asses MS have been over the quicktime plug-in....

Apple needs Quicktime to run on Mac, because they want to sell their hardware to content developers.

Apple also needs for Quicktime to run on Windows, because that's what the content consumers use.

Apple does not care about Linux, because by comparison, very few of the content viewers use Linux.

Now, as much as you and I would love for there to be a Quicktime app/plugin for Linux, I don't see that support coming from Apple.

The only thing that will convince Apple to make Quicktime for Linux is a dramatic increase in the amount of desktop end-users running Linux. The best way you can make that happen is by increasing the usability and friendliness of Linux as a whole, by writing programs with clean GUIs and good documentation.

To put it in other terms, Apple does not care about a platform where you have to know to type "rpm -iv quicktime_plugin.i386.rpm" to install it. That needs to change first! 99% of the computing population can not, and will not understand the command line!

What are the "clear limitations" of X? We now have anti-aliased text, direct-rendered 3D hardware support, true-type font support, support for running on embedded devices (i.e. iPaq)... What else do you want?

Installation and icons are the responsibility of the distribution and the API. It's not about X, it's about Red Hat and GNOME, which could solve both problems. And color pointers have been done by several software packages, among them many of Loki's games. There are also X extensions around (or at least there used to be -- search freshmeat) for color and animated color root window pointers.
Your speed claims are ridiculous. I personally watch full-screen DVD video all the time using vlc in X. It looks great to me, no frames are dropped, and my hardware is virtually identical to yours. Just search for 'vlc' at freshmeat. I also own and play Quake III all the time under X using my GF2 card, and it's within just a few frames of the Windows speeds I get, with some definite advantages -- like being able to run it in a window.
If your 3D card isn't as fast, just maybe you should ask your video card manufacturer for some drivers! And don't make fun of my Nvidia card and their 'closed' drivers -- all of your Windows 3D drivers are closed.

Just because you don't know how to do it doesn't mean it isn't possible. And the things you're talking about would be just as difficult to get together if you had to do it by hand under Windows -- so blame the people who put it all on your CD-ROM (whoever made your distro) and not X, which is a great piece of software that is very stable, mature, and well-designed.

X does not do color cursors. The call to set the cursor takes two bitmaps, giving you 3 colors at most (plus transparent). Most X servers use only 2 colors and make the third color be "xor" (perhaps this is required). Nobody has bothered to modify the call to take an X Pixmap, because they are all paranoid about back compatability.

Similarily, yea there is this marvelous XRender "extension" to do anti-aliased fonts, but use of it requires a huge library on the client end, completely defeating one of the main purposes of X! Why didn't they just replace the existing X font rendering? People always tell me "well, that's technically impossible, you don't know shit about X", but I know for a fact that the MicroSoft that we all love to deride successfully replaced *their* non-antialiased interface with an anti-aliased one and it didn't break any programs and all programs, including old ones, suddenly got anti-aliased text! I think it is pretty disgusting that the X designers cannot do this. Of course it is due to the absrudly complex internals of X and the horrid complex toolkits that are atop it that make them completely unwilling to change the slightest thing about how the calls work for fear they will break something.

And all that 3-D stuff is added on. I have to create different "contexts" for OpenGL than for X, I have to use totally different calls to set the color I want to draw in, and I can't share the fonts (especially I can't share the new XRender fonts). This is just stupid and has absolutely nothing to do with intelligent design. (Of course MicroSoft's 3D has the same problem so we aren't inferior to them there, but still...)

Sounds like you've never used X11. What are these "clear limitations"?

In fact, X11 is still vastly superior to Win32 GDI (or whatever they're calling it today).
I work from home two days a week, and I have DSL. I use Unix/X11 for everything - which means that I can do anything I need to using any program on any machine (whether it's at home or at the office) from either home or the office. Working from home is identical to working at the office - except for the noise, the constant interruptions, meetings, etc.

That one feature by itself is enough to blow all the Micros**t crap out of the water. (Leaving aside the fact that X11 can do anything that can be done on Windows. You might say that "Program X on Windows does foobar, show me an X11 program that does that" but you will miss the point. The lack of existence of that program is not due to any weakness of X11; it's simply because no one has written that program yet.)

Nobody wants to compile his own software just to put it under his user's home directory instead of globally.
There needs to be something like InstallShield or Wise Install for Windows -- I double click the executable
on my desktop, answer a few simple questions, and, *poof*, my scripts are updated and the software is
installed.

You don't really think that a significant proportion of Linux/Unix users today compile things from source, do you? (A few do - gluttons for punishment like me... but I like having the source so if some bug really starts to annoy me, I can jump in and fix it.) Everyone else I know runs some sort of desktop; on Linux, K or Gnome. On both those systems, when you want to install something, you click on it, a window pops up that you type the root password into, and voila! it sets everything up, including billions of annoying icons everywhere, just like you want.

(If you really mean to argue for the Windows Way of "everyone is logged in as Administrator all the time" - well, I wish I hadn't typed all this stuff in, because there's no hope.)

Don't get me wrong: if Program X that you need is only available on Operating System Y, of course your machine should be running Y. We use programs, not operating systems. (Again, except for the aforementioned gluttons for punishment like me - I've been writing code on Unix for 20 years and I just can't use any other OS. And I do watch video on Linux - you just need a video card that XFree86 supports well. And yes, it's not likely that Mom will be able to figure all this out.)

I'm not trolling. I know about GnoRPM and Red Carpet. But you have to be root to run either of them, which is yet another step in the way.

They also don't come with every distribution of Linux (no standard). Mom's PC at home may or may not work the same as the one she has at work.

These are usability problems that need to be addressed. The point is that GnoRPM and Red Carpet are GREAT - if you already know how to use RPM! But neither is as easy as "click setup.exe and look for your new program in the start menu".

Please note, I'm not saying to dumb it down for everyone - but there does need to be some standard for installing and updating programs. The Red Hat network is a good start (still too hard for a newbie, in my opinion) that is moving in the right direction.

You want nice stuff like the Quicktime plugin ported to Linux? You want Flash or Dreamweaver for development? You want the latest games? Then you're going to have to give a little on usability - these companies aren't going to be interested in selling those titles to 1% of the computer market.

You may hate "Joe Sixpack" and think he's an idiot, but the fact is, the market FOLLOWS Joe Sixpack. So if you want more stuff for Linux, figure out how to make it easy enough for Joe Sixpack to understand!

Re: But neither is as easy as "click setup.exe and look for your new program in the start menu".

What the f**k is this? Since when is "install" user friendly? People have been so biased by Windoze crap that they call crap that is only slightly better than Linux "user freindly".

In reality the average user has no idea that you "install" anything.

How about this for user freindly:

The user clicks on the program and it RUNS!!! It does not "install" or any such crap. It RUNS, like programs did THIRTY F**KING YEARS AGO!

Then the user can try out the program. If they don't like it, they quit, and they throw the icon they clicked on in the trash, and it is GONE with no cleanup necessary!

Yea, of course "installation" is necessary. How about if the programs, if they need installation, would pop up a warning "Until you decide to install me, I can't do this wizzy network thing, so I will show you a simulation of what I do". The user can still experiement with it.

When the user quits the program it pops up a box that says "Would you like to make this program available to all users of your system?" (or if it needs root stuff to function, "Would you like to make this program able to do it's stuff for all users". It would then pop up a box that says "Please type the root password for your machine" (possibly with a button that says "this is what I am going to do" that shows advanced users the exact script it is going to run as root). The user does this and the program is then "installed", and the icon they clicked is removed (because a new icon appears on the startup menu or whatever).

When the user tires of a program they installed, they can pick "uninstall" from the program. It says "please type the root password" (and the "this is what I'm going to do" button) and then the program is removed and it exits. It may also offer "Do you want to save me so I can be used again" and if you say yes it asks for a location and an icon identical to the original one is created there.

I'm really don't understand, though, where people who otherwise appear intelligent, will go and say "Linux needs easier installation". What we need is *NO* "installation".

Whether you can handle command lines or not is not a simple question of what you "grow up with", although this does indeed play a major role. It is also a question of how your brain works. (Of course, if you really grow up with a certain GUI, this directly influences how your brain works.) Many, if not most people are very visual thinkers who need pictures and symbols and are easily confused by complex words and grammar. This is not a character flaw -- it is simply the result of a different learning environment. So GUIs make sense for many people. Linux has fairly decent GUIs by now, and it offers people a shell with a complex and logical "grammar". So it gives the user more choices, not less.

What has to happen is that the different layers of user experience have to be separated more clearly. Any user should still be able to configure procmail, compile his own kernel or set up a firewall or router, if he so desires, but if he doesn't, he must be able to use Linux day-to-day without ever having to deal with the "uglier" parts of the OS. This is gradually happening, but it is a process which is not yet complete (mostly because of Microsoft's monopoly stretches out to so many areas).

o IE6 drops quicktime, and Linux picks it up. good deal. i must say i'm a little surprised that Apple is better about making a Linux friendly quicktime viewer, especially in light of what asses MS have been over the quicktime plug-in....

If there isn't one already, there will soon be a QuickTime active x component for ie6. And the quicktime-for-linux bit isn't by apple, its by the people at codeweavers. It allows the apple quicktime plugin for windows to work in linux. There is no apple support for quicktime on linux.

Netscape's plugin format is good, because it simplifies cross-platform and cross-browser porting. Why spend more to make an activeX and a Netscape plugin, when you can make one that works for everyone?

Second, MS just dropped it unexpectedly. No reason, other than to play hardball and FORCE ActiveX development. Now, if they made an announcement that the next release won't have Netscape plugin support, then there'd be a lot less ill sentiment.

Where Quicktime runs has nothing to do with it. The point is that an activex control is NOT anywhere near to standards complient (strike your "oh woe for the unfair bashing of microsoft" troll). Netscapes' interface has become a defacto standard in so far as many browsers (including IE) support it and it doesn't require a platform specific architecture to implement.

Why aren't you complaining that the lazy developers at Mozilla/Netscape, Opera, etc. are not adapting to the REAL defacto standard of ActiveX?

That's the problem right there - just how is ActiveX ANY kind of standard (defacto or not)? The closest thing to a standard ActiveX manages is Microsoft's standard. Nobody else's.

Where do you draw the line? It's quite arbitrary. Why shouldn't we just remove all multimedia and images altogether to make everything "compliant" with Mosaic? Why, we can't leave THEM out, they're cross-platform.

Of course - the img tag IS a standard. Whether Mosaic has implemented it is not the issue.

But for all your posturing, you've stumbled on one valid point. When do we not get upset about non-standard extensions? It doesn't happen. Netscape pushed forward the development of HTML standards by creating their own extensions while pushing standards bodies to adopt them (or adopting extensions before they became standards - can't remember the exact timing off-hand). Netscape had its detractors (for valid reasons, IMHO, although I'm not critical). The difference is - these non-standard extensions were easy to adopt, were not platform specific, and were presented by Netscape to become standards to the appropriate bodies.

ActiveX follows none of this.

Once again - Microsoft is NOT following a standard. They are NOT being criticised for following a standard. They are being criticised for forcing development towards a solution that exists nowhere else but on their own platform.

Actually, you're right, I don't like it. Gates tends to donate to causes like third world vaccines [salon.com] while he holds stock in biotech companies [businessweek.com]. Sounds like a conflict of interest there.

This rant is not intended to be polite political correct critisism. If you are offended by it, then good. If you're offended by it, then I'm probably offended by you.

This is one of the stupidest things I've seen on slashdot for a while, and it has some good competition. It's so horrible that Mr Gates invests money in boitech companies. The article says he's actually interested in seeing that the drugs work, and that they do what they are designed to do. He donates millions of dollars to vaccinate children in third world countries. There is no possible way he is actually making a profit from that just because he owns significant amounts of stock in biotech companies. However, there is a chance that it shows he really does care, and he's investing in helping create new medicines to make people's life's better.
Bill gates owns stock in a lot of companies. Someone always seems to want to whine that anything he does to help people is in some way a conflict of interest. He donates a significan portion of his income to charities to help people, especially those in dire need. He does a lot of good through those charities, and complaining about him donating money to vaccinate children so they don't die at a very young age, is beyond stupid. It's childish, craven, and pathetic. People's lives are at stake and you want to complain that possibly one or two percent of the money he donates may somehow find it's way back to him through profits of a company he owns stock in. You truely disgust me.

Seem fine to me. I mean there are plenty of people that want to be able to use QuickTime NOW, and paying 20 dollars isn't terribly much, even if it is for only 6 months or a year. Something that is interesting is if you think about software-for-hire - if people really do end up renting software, it may in fact make it much easier to move over to an open source version if one becomes available later.

OS/2's claim to fame was that they could run windows apps faster than windows...

All the apps developers look at that and say "hey, if I develop native OS/2, only OS/2 users can buy my app... but if I develop for windows, everyone can buy it"

So everyone made windows apps... and the people buying the OS looked around and saw a billion windows apps and very few OS/2 apps and said "all these apps are 'for windows' so I might as well run windows just to be sure"

It's always a problem with emulation... unless you can do it much cheaper, people will go with the original.

At one point, the best way to get a great X server was to buy one. Always struck me as somewhat stupid to have to buy one when I'd be paying more money for the server than I did for the card (I once priced an X server, don't remember if it was Metro, Xi, or what) and it would have run me $150. The card in question was $50. Part of the price of that card was to help pay for the development of Windows drivers, of course.

So get off your ass if you don't like it and start a Free project. This is based on WINE, after all.

...but I think that this is one of the most important news items I've seen in some time. Getting QuickTime to the linux desktop is an incredible step towards making linux viable for the average joe's desktop OS.

Its a shame that apple's "open source commitment" doesn't reach to the QuickTime team, or this would have happened a long time ago...

The penguins bitch about the degredation of the web into "proprietary standards" like QuickTime and Shockwave, yet rejoice when these finally become available on Linux... At least stick to your guns. If you dislike these formats because they are proprietary, it shouldn't matter of the are available for whatever platform you use, because you don't want it. If you disliked them simply because they weren't penguin-friendly, then admit that, too...

This is the fallacy of the 'other' -- assuming that all members of communities other than your own are similar to one another.

Have you considered that there may be many 'species' of penguins? Among them, for example, may be both those that hate proprietary standards and those (a separate 'species') that simply don't like anything which doesn't support Linux. And there are more types of penguins, too. For example, those (myself included) which couldn't give less of a rat's ass about Quicktime one way or the other. And how about those 'VM Penguins' who have QuickTime running under NT in one window and Linux running under NT in another window?

It takes all kinds. There's nothing wrong with allowing the 'Yay, Quicktime for Linux!' penguins to have a moment in the sun. Please don't assume, however, that all penguins are the same. Linux users are no more homogenous than Windows users, motorcyclists or ethnic minorities.

CrossOver IS a "netscape for linux" plugin that interfaces with a custom build of WINE [winehq.com], the Windows Emulator. Through this windows emulator, you may install and run the Quicktime (for Windows!), Flash (for windows!), and Word Reader (for Windows!) plugins. And CrossOver will handle the interaction for you, to make the windows VM appear in the appropriate window/panel for your browser of choice.

Since it's a Netscape plugin, it will work with varying degrees of success with other browsers, like moz and konq. Remember, the Netscape plugin format is the one IE is abandoning, so there might not even be any plugins to use with CrossOver after a couple of years.

That said, it's pretty damn neat. And I can see why they're charging for it - it's kind of a way to get *any* windows plugin to work as native plugins would under Linux. Of course the functionality isn't perfect, but I can definitely see business customers being interested if they have a need for things like that. Could be the essential migration tool for some shop...

It's sad that this plug-in isn't free software, but I wouldn't mind buying it because they do contribute a fair amount to the WINE project. It would be great if the FSF or some government organization would buy the code and GPL it.

If the US government spent as much money in grants to write free software as they do fighting M$ the computer world would be a much happier place.

Most of the ASF et. al. support comes from using the Windows binary codecs...

Until FFMPEG [sourceforge.net] came along, or more importantly, Xine 0.51 [sourceforge.net], which plays MSMPEG and DivX encoded AVIs just fine, natively. Not sure about ASFs - should be pretty triviual to do, but I haven't texted it yet.

Oh, and if you want Xine with the ability to play the DVD movies you paid for, you should get the packages from here [freshrpms.net].

I wrote native QT (using licensed portions of XAnim) and native QTVR support for OS/2 [slashdot.org] some years ago and have been on a jihad for 5 years to get
Apple to wake up and port the QT client -- PLAYBACK ONLY -- to Linux. Just because it makes so damn much sense.

If your friend has any direct line to Jobs at all, I wish he could get one simple message through.

Seems that quicktime is the feature that keeps Macs on the forefront of digital video production. To port it to linux would eat into Apple's niche market position.

Uhhh....does _anyone_ do professional digital video production on a linux box? (Hint: no.) Hell, QuickTime is out for Windows, yet Windows is not a very good platform for doing video. The vast majority of digital video is done on Avid machines or Macs running Final Cut. Doing professoinal digital video requires software and machines that meet very srtict specifications.

True, Apple does keep some of its digital video software for the mac only. Howeer, Macromedia worked on Final Cut Pro for more than a year before selling it to Apple. Macromedia just couldn't get it to work on both platforms, so apple bought it and eliminated the windows side.

Linux is very good at some things. However, it has a loooong way to go before it can chip away at Apple's client base.

Uhhh....does _anyone_ do professional digital video production on a linux box? (Hint: no.)

Your point may be valid - I'm not aware of any professional studios using Linux for video editing. But I think you might be dismissing a trend. Linux is making headway in the film industry.

Two examples are Pixar [zdnet.com](noteably Shrek) and Square [zdnet.com](Final Fantasy). Linux has been doing some heavy lifting in render farms for a while now. But note that its also showing up as workstations. Existing product lines and tools are being ported to Linux, and some production houses are generating their own internal tools.

This might not be a solid example of Linux in video editing today - but it does show Linux could compete with Apple for the same niche markets in the future.

You'd have a point if video editing and 3D rendering were in the same niche and Apple had much of a share in 3D rendering.

Fair enough. There is quite a leap from one application to another. And Linux has yet to make that jump.

But the point I'm trying to make is - why discount Linux as unable to MAKE that jump? Linux made inroads in professional movie production handling server farm hardware. Now its showing up running workstation hardware (and not just for 3D rendering - I can't find the article, but I remember reading a studio had developed inhouse applications for storyboarding and inking animation frames). Movie studio professionals are being exposed to, and becoming comfortable, with Linux. Why wouldn't these same professionals start looking at Linux as a solution for video editing?

If I had aimed my hopes on a niche market, and watched other's niche markets slowly invaded by Linux (ie: SGI), I might be a bit wary of it myself. Especially if neither my software NOR hardware really was included as Linux's selling point.

In short - I could understand Apple being wary of Linux... if, in fact, that's what is actually happening.

I've done all my video editing on Windows boxes. In the age of ultra-ATA and software disk striping, it is pretty trivial to put together a hardware solution for DV.

I'll admit that there are a lot of people using Mac based systems, especially with Media 100 and uncompressed video, but there are probably more people (especially at the "wedding/event videographer" DV level) using PCs today, because the PC solution is cheaper.

Just what Mostly useless code are you talking about? Apple is more standards-compliant than MS, Quicktime files are pretty open format, it's the sorenson codec that's closed. MPEG-4 is based on QT's file format.

Apple is not bad at open source. Darwin runs pretty well, and they're financially motivated to do so, unlike some other companies.

The quicktime streaming server is not just "open source then do nothing", it's ported to NT, linux, Solaris, etc.

Apple is now tied closer to BSD. They hired Jordan Hubbard, and used to have Wilfredo Sanchez. Both are really good at tieing *Nix stuff to OS X. Try using Perl or PHP on it. It kicks.

The point I'm trying to make is that Apple hasn't stopped you from writing a Quicktime client. They simply haven't provided you with a CODEC which they're paying to license from Sorenson.. It's a big difference..

They not only have not provided the CODEC, they have also not allowed its algorithm to be coded. It is a big difference. They are blocking me from viewing copyrighted content I own on the operating system I prefer using software patents.

Opening it requires use of the patent, and software that doesn't exist except under MacOS and Windows - operating systems I do not use.

It doesn't exactly help for streaming software either.

Free Unices have exactly NO viable QT viewers that can use the Sorenson codec, which is used by almost everything. The patent doesn't expire for another decade plus. Users of these operating systems are blocked from viewing free (as in beer) copyrighted content on the web.

Apple could solve this merely by making an agreement with the writer of xanim, who has a QT viewer that supports other patented codecs by Intel and Radius Cinepak. So far they will not. Steve Jobs would rather those users not be able to see content, or be forced to buy Windows or MacOS to be able to use free players.

I actually wrote Sorensen (I think it's "-en," not "-on," isn't it?) about this a couple years ago, when BeOS R4.5 came out and its Media Kit was (mostly) functional--in theory, it could have played and written Sorensen QuickTimes if only Sorensen made a codec for BeOS. Sorensen's response was quick and polite: "we've licensed the codec exclusively to Apple, so it's up to Apple to port their QuickTime player to other platforms."

And of course, that was sure likely. At least judging by actions, Gassee and Jobs have been in a pissing contest for years. Linux doesn't have Jobs' personal animosity directed at it, but--again judging by actions--it doesn't quite penetrate Steve's personal reality distortion field. (Apple's support of MkLinux predates Jobs, and I suspect there are reasons what support they give to the open source world these days is BSD-centric.)

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that Linux needs right now. Funny to think that with all the awesome software we have (Apache, KDE, the Gimp, Linux itself...) the thing we need the most right now is a lame little viewer for some proprietary media formats. But it's true.

I have no problem at all paying for software like this. Especially since they have priced it quite reasonably.

My experience with the various video formats on Windows boxes suggest that QT for Windows is intentionally crippled by the folks at Apple to help sell more Apple hardware.

QT files (like the Mario 128 demo I downloaded from IGN) on my HDD constantly lagged and skipped on my old 233 MMX machine with 128 MB of RAM and a Diamond Stealth III (while RealMedia and mpeg files did fine). I assumed that Apple's QT player was bloatware and required something a bit more robust to play well. However, if I'm still having the same lagging/skipping problems with a Pentium 4 1.3 GHz, 256 MB of RAM, and a GeForce board, will I ever have good enough hardware? I know the Pentium 4 isn't the best-designed chip under the sun, but this is ridiculous! Especially when other video formats work just fine on comparativley ancient hardware.

And of course this problem is only worsened by sites like IGN that offer media excluslively as QT files. (And then IGN expects me to pay money for their premium content?)

Go ahead, mod me down as flamebait, but I don't even want QT software touching my Windows installs. Why would I want it running under Linux?

Just after MS ripped off key Quicktime code from a 3rd party consultant (litigated, settled), it emerged that Quicktime for Windows was facing unusual, suspicious performance and compatibility problems sourced in the Windows OS itself. I believe that MS's shenanigans with QT were brought up again during the MS monopoly trial.

Apple conscientiously produces good software, so its problems on Windows weren't due necessarily from bad coding. The whole situation brings to mind how MS used incompatibilities to crush DR-DOS (and IBM to crush a chip maker before that). Of course, shortly after all this, the windows Mediaplayer made its debut.

So, going by this particular conspiracy theory, you bought into MS's crap hook, line, and sinker. Remember, Apple owns a massive chunk of hollywood because of the quality of its tools. On the one hand, MS has a good reason for helping you overlook this core fact.

On the other hand, Apple has to work overtime to produce cool new products because so many people hate the very idea of Apple's existence: they won't release substandard software if they can help it.

I just purchased the crossover plugin, and here are my first thoughs with it: (testing with Netscape & Mozilla)

Installer: Very cool - makes it way easier to get the plugins.

Quicktime: Quicktime installed fine, but the opening video I played had no sound.
following attempts with opening a.mov file on my system with browsers led to:

Netscape:.mov file played correctly, and in line
Mozilla: Tried to launch Xanim
Gnome (nautilus): launches to Xanim

Shockwave: Shockwave installer had to be downloaded, but it's install went fine
Netscape: every file I have tried to use has worked to at least some degree. some things the sound only produces a crackle - but this could be my audio driver I suppose
Mozilla: only aboul a 1/4 of th eflash files Ihave tried have worked. Some sites cannot detect tha mozilla has the plugin installed.

Word: Word viewer installed fine, though it didthrow an error, saying the plugin wasn't detected.
Netscape: Files loaded fine (Note, if file has a space in it's name, you need to escape it, or it will take you to netscape's search site) Note: the file was not viewed in line
Mozilla: Didn't pick up the mime type, and so just displayed a normal dialog for running a file it does not recognize
Gnome: Files launched to the word viewer fine

Excel: Excel viewer installed fine, though it didthrow an error, saying the plugin wasn't detected.
Netscape: Files loaded fine (Note, if file has a space in it's name, you need to escape it, or it will take you to netscape's search site) Note: the file was not viewed in line
Mozilla: Didn't pick up the mime type, and so just displayed a normal dialog for running a file it does not recognize
Gnome: Files launched to the excel viewer fine

Note, the Excel & Word viewers did not show up in mozilla when one does an About:Plugin

Final judgement: This works pretty well in Netscape, but needs alot of work for Mozilla. this is to be expected from the release notes. For me, the word and excel viewers are well worth the $20 - and the rest is fun to play with

The two proprietary components of CrossOver are our installation utility, which is of no general value, and

If it's of no value the why not open it? I mean it seems rather daft to limit your costumer base to those who are willing to run closed code in super user mode. What does it do? It could install spyware or give my browser the yellow links for all I know.

Proprietary formats are bad: they restrict fair use rights unreasonably, and they mean that data simply becomes inaccessible in a few years, when the companies that created those formats have moved on to the next thing or gone out of business. Giving companies that kind of control over content threatens the foundations of our academic, social, and political institutions.

Using the kinds of workarounds CodeWeavers is making available only perpetuates such formats. You should instead ask web sites and content providers to use open, documented formats. Even if the open formats are encumbered by patents (like MPEG), that is still a better deal than using something proprietary; patents eventually expire, but undocumented proprietary formats never become open, they become obsolete and forgotten.

Besides, don't fool yourself for a moment: Microsoft and Apple will only allow this sort of thing to go on if they see it as being either useless or in their advantage. Otherwise, they have plenty of legal and technical means for stopping it.

Okay, so you have a point about the MegaHertz Myth, but how can PowerPC compete with 2 Ghz systems shipping today and dual/quad+ 2Ghz systems on their way before christmas? I want some real world benchmarks to show me that these PowerPC chips are more than hype, that they really are supercomputers! Then I'll think about spending the extra $1000 over the cost of my cheap/modular PC hardware to get into a Mac. Now if all the Macs came with titanium cases it might be different. (MacOS is quite nice!)

The file stuff is a problem. We're using
the Yahoo store front, so we have a remarkably
limited amount of control over both the
file and the amount of information we can
add to the actual order pages. We're
working on it.

I've asked our sysadmin to post the EULA
to our pages; we very much intend for
our customers to know exactly what
they're getting before they buy.

FWIW, this is the only complaint of this type we
have had; we have hundreds of successful
downloads, from people all over the world.

We do have issues with Yahoo not providing file sizes to browsers. We're working with Yahoo to resolve these issues; we are also hoping that
Yahoo can help to explain why this customer
had such a severe problem.

We are responding to issues as quickly as we
can; please bear in mind that our store
has been operational for all of 36 hours.

We have been trying to work with customers
that have problems, and we have had good
success in resolving problems (you
can review the support emails yourself
if you like). Praedor was understandably
upset and was not willing to allow us
the time to correct the problem.

However, please note that my guarantee is
firm: if you're not satisfied, we refund
your money, no questions asked - which is
what we have done here.